Anthony Marr's CARE-7 tour blog #21 - 15 Jun 2010

It is now past mid-night. After a full day's drive starting from Orlando,
Florida, at 9 am, with a lunch stop at Jungle Friends in Gainesville FL
around noon, I finally arrived at Pisgah, Alabama, around 11 pm.

(From concentration camp...

... to the slaughter house.)

I'm sitting alone at the kitchen table of an uninhabited farm house over
a century old, in the middle of nowhere. It is totally silent, without even
the sighing of a breeze or the rustling of leaves. The back of my mind half
expected to hear a "bump in the night", or to see an apparition in a dark
corner of the hallway.

(In day light the next morning: A barn twice as old as me.)

In the last two weeks I've endured severe attacks from whom I used to
consider friends, with twisted truths and outright lies, one saying that I
issued death threats against them and their families, when it was a mere
expletive uttered by a justly angry woman in Australia, while another sent
emails to my tour hosts titled "Beware of Anthony Marr", the objective of
which being not only to destroy my tour, but my reputation. And though many
of these hosts have written me expressing their indignation and sympathy,
saying how unethical the sender of the email was, I had adequate cause to
lose much faith in friendship and humanity. But in the still of the night,
with the stars glistening above, I feel personally insignificant, reducing
these slanders of the slanderers to less than the mere bites of mosquitoes.

(The 19th century farm house where I spend the night.)

I reread the cosmically inspired poem titled "Worldly Crimes Amidst
Celestial Glory", which I wrote and published in June 10, and was elevated
by it to the cosmic plane.

In the eyes of the godly from afar
our Earth shines like a bright blue star
whose celestial light masks the pain
suffusing her days and nights and rain
beneath the perpetual coagulating scar
of the abused, the maimed, and the slain.

But these eyes do water as they behold
in the deep darkness of the human fold
the struggle of the evil versus the good
where compassion meets the heart of wood
and cruelty faces the kind and the bold
while the universe unfolds as it should.

But for those who live upon the earth
it is a matter of deep personal worth.
As she wounds or heals or kills or saves,
whether he liberates or if he enslaves,
it's meaning and purpose of their birth
and fate and destiny unto their graves.

This is my CARE-7 tour blog #21. It reminds me of the turning of the
centuries from the 20th to the 21st. When Y2K was happening, we had so much
hope for our future. The new century held so much promise - the dawning of a
new age, the attainment of Utopia, the realization of Nirvana on Earth, the
final elevation of humanity and its ascension to the stars.

The reality is of course far different. We are wandering blindly into the
greatest peril a million-fold worse than anything mankind has ever faced,
with our children following trustingly in our footsteps. Even Mother Earth
herself has not known what is to come, save but one shattering calamity 251
million years ago - the End Permian Mass Extinction, caused indeed by global
warming, which terminated 75% of all land species, and 95% of all marine
species - the 3rd and most calamitous mass extinct in the history of life on
Earth, which made the 5th, the one that eliminated the dinosaurs 64 million
years ago, look like a minor cull. And the current 6th mass extinction
threatens to equal or exceed this 3rd. Yes, it could be that severe, with up
to 17 million of the current estimated 20 million species at serious risk,
all due to the irresponsible, foolish, and often evil actions of one species
- our own - which could easily join the ranks of the forever extinct.

In the scheme of things, all the anti-cruelty laws and ethical standards
won't amount to a list of files on a shattered CD if there were no animals
left to protect and no humans left to civilize.

Our Mother Earth is still a beautiful sentient being, but she is
critically afflicted with the Six Planetary Diseases (see www.HOPE-CARE.org)
and declining fast. Unless she be healed immediately or sooner, she could
lose within decades millions of species of beauty evolved by nature through
the eons. She could lose her biomass, her biodiversity, her life force and
even her life. To say the least, she could lose all the cultures and
civilizations, and all their arts, sciences and philosophies, created by her
species Homo Sapiens - "Man the Wise". And her species Homo Sapiens, the
cause of her six planetary diseases, could lose itself.

Since I visited the Wildlife Care Center in Fort Lauderdale, I've been
city hopping almost daily:

Can't say I didn't make maximum use of my time in Florida, nor that
Catherine Garneau did not do a fantastic job organizing it.

Through all this lecturing, I have brought my speech [Homo Sapiens! SAVE
YOUR EARTH!] to maturity at last, ending in the way to the optimal human
destiny, by which my audiences were "blown away", "awed", "enchanted", and
"enlightened" - INTEGRATIVE TRANSCENDENCE.

And by Integrative Transcendence, I have maintained my faith in spite of
all.

Following are pictures that will tell the story:

Largo FL:

(2 of Sara's and Mitches' 3 ferrets.)

On the way to Miami via the Everglades:

(Into the Everglades.)

(Dark side of Everglades National Park.)

(The Green Hornet in "Alligator Alley".)

(The Green Hornet blocking boat ramp to protect the manatees :)

The gorgeous flame and banyan trees in Miami:

- June 9 Wednesday, talk at the Hippocrates Center in West Palm Beach FL,
organized by Katharine Clark.

(Katharine Clark in her office in the Hippocrates Center in West Palm
Beach.)

(Luncheon talk at the Hippocrates Center in West Palm Beach.)

- June 10 Thursday, talk at the Soma Center in West Palm Beach FL,
organized by Katharine Clark
- June 11 Friday, talk at the Soma Center in Lake Worth FL, organized by
Katharine Clark